Survival Probability of Large Rapidity Gaps in pbar p, pp, gamma p and gamma gamma Collisions

Using an eikonal analysis, we simultaneously fit a QCD-inspired parameterization of all accelerator data on forward proton-proton and antiproton-proton scattering amplitudes, together with cosmic ray data (using Glauber theory), to predict proton-air and proton-proton cross sections at energies near \sqrt s \approx 30 TeV. The p-air cosmic ray measurements greatly reduce the errors in the high energy proton-proton and proton-air cross section predictions--in turn, greatly reducing the errors in the fit parameters. From this analysis, we can then compute the survival probability of rapidity gaps in high energy pbar p and pp collisions, with high accuracy in a quasi model-free environment. Using an additive quark model and vector meson dominance, we note that that the survival probabilities are identical, at the same energy, for gamma p and gamma gamma collisions, as well as for nucleon-nucleon collisions. Significantly, our analysis finds large values for gap survival probabilities, \approx 30% at \sqrt s = 200 GeV, \approx 21% at \sqrt s = 1.8 TeV and \approx %%13% at \sqrt s = 14 TeV.